Rome was on Wednesday recovering from a night of violence that left 90 people injured and dozens arrested after Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi survived a crucial no-confidence vote.

Berlusconi scraped through by just three votes, with 314 lawmakers voting in his favor, 311 against and two abstentions in the 630-seat lower house.

Italy held its breath on Tuesday as lawmakers staged a knife-edge confidence vote on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government that could bring down the flamboyant Italian leader.

Berlusconi voiced confidence in a victorious outcome as he arrived in parliament and said he "absolutely excluded" his resignation, demanded by former allies from his centre-right coalition who rebelled against him.

South Korea's army chief resigned Tuesday over a controversial property investment, at a time of high tensions with North Korea following its deadly artillery attack on a border island last month.

The departure of General Hwang Eui-Don is a further blow to the South's military, widely criticized for a perceived feeble response to the North's bombardment, which triggered international alarm.

Richard Holbrooke, a brilliant and feisty U.S. diplomat who wrote part of the Pentagon Papers, was the architect of the 1995 Bosnia peace plan and served as President Barack Obama's special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, died Monday, the State Department said. He was 69.

Calling Holbrooke "a true giant of American foreign policy," Obama paid homage to the veteran diplomat as "a truly unique figure who will be remembered for his tireless diplomacy, love of country, and pursuit of peace." Holbrooke deserves credit for much of the progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the president said.

Sweden on Sunday probed two bomb blasts that killed a person in central Stockholm as a "terrorist crime", as an Al-Qaeda-linked website claimed one of its militants had carried out the suicide attack.

Saturday's explosions -- a suspected suicide attack and separate blast -- targeted Christmas shoppers in a busy pedestrian quarter of the Swedish capital. Two people were also injured.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday invited Jordan's King Abdullah II to visit Tehran, in a letter delivered by top aid Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, a palace statement said.

"His majesty met Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, who delivered a letter from President Ahmadinejad about bilateral ties as well as regional and international issues," it said.

Six foreign soldiers were killed Sunday following an attack by insurgents in Afghanistan's Taliban-hit south, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.

The coalition force would not give further details of the incident, one of the deadliest single attacks in recent months, and would not reveal the soldiers' nationalities, in line with its policy.

Twin blasts in central Stockholm killed one person and injured two others, in what Sweden's foreign minister said was a "terrorist" attack that could have had "catastrophic" consequences.

The explosions on Saturday, in a busy part of the capital packed with Christmas shoppers, came minutes after a Swedish news agency received a message denouncing Sweden's military presence in Afghanistan and threatening deadly attacks.

Wikileaks soon won't be the only secret-spilling game in town.

A former co-worker of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange plans to launch a rival website Monday called Openleaks that will help anonymous sources deliver sensitive material to public attention.

Hackers claimed Wednesday to have attacked the websites of Mastercard and a Swiss bank in apparent revenge for their decisions to choke off funding for the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

But WikiLeaks insisted it had nothing to do with the hacking.